Thailand’s Central Bank To Have its Own Digital Token

The Bank of Thailand has unveiled the official plans for its proposed CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) dubbed the Project Inthanon.

The New Face Of Thailand’s Financial Sector

Thailand’s Central Bank, the Bank of Thailand (BoT), is in the process of assembling the team that will be in charge of developing the prototype for the CBDC proof of concept. The BOT will be collaborating with eight other banks and will be utilizing Corda, a distributed ledger platform, in building the prototype which will make the transfer of funds possible domestically through the issuance of CBDC tokens.

The Central Bank has said through the statement that by adopting Blockchain technology in the decentralized money transfer project, the financial sector of Thailand will be technologically ready to adopt other disruptive technologies and also be in a position to improve the sector’s operational efficiencies.

This initiative was first made public by the governor of the Central Bank, Veerathai Santiprabhob while attending a financial summit held in Singapore two months ago. Saying that the main aim of the project was to meet the demand for faster transactions, the governor added that the project would make interbank settlement not only easier but also more efficient through the use of CBDC.

More Central Banks Seeking Own Cryptocurrencies

Project Inthanon will be headed by the Central Bank of Thailand, which will be partnering with R3 who will be providing the technology and eight local financial institutions. BoT’s statement added that these efforts were quite similar to those taken by other Central Banks around the world including Singapore, Canada, and Hong Kong.

In its statement, Thailand’s Central Bank emphasized the initiative’s significance saying that the outcome of the project, and lessons learned in the process, will help lay the foundation of the country’s future financial sector.

In the case of Singapore’s Central Bank’s efforts towards establishing its own Blockchain based digital token, the first phase of the project, dubbed the Project Ubin, has already been finalized. With the main aim of the project being to develop a digital representation of the national currency Singaporean Dollar (SGD) on a Blockchain network, the country’s Central Bank announced in June that it was successful in utilizing an Ethereum Blockchain in the issuance of its own digital currency.

The Scope For The Proof Of Concept Prototype

BOT has said that the in conjunction with the eight financial institutions it will be designing, developing and testing how well the prototype functions with regards to the wholesale transfer of funds domestically through CBDC as well as how functional other features of the prototype are such as the risk management functionality and liquidity savings.

The first phase of the project has been slated to end by next year March after which the BOT will be publishing the project’s summary. After the summary has been published, the BOT has said it will then announce the set goals for the next phase of the project. It said that upon completion of the first phase, the participants will be looking to expand the project’s capabilities.